Medicinal Plants of India: Implications in Modern Medicine
The linkage between biodiversity and human health is well established. Conserving forest biodiversity by valuing and harnessing it, as medicine, is consistent with poverty reduction and local public health prevention efforts. Global demand for herbal medi
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Nimisha Vijayan, T.S. Swapna, G. Seghal Kiran, and Sabu Abdulhameed
Abstract
The linkage between biodiversity and human health is well established. Conserving forest biodiversity by valuing and harnessing it, as medicine, is consistent with poverty reduction and local public health prevention efforts. Global demand for herbal medicines is accompanied by reducing supply of medicinal plants due to overharvesting, habitat loss, and agricultural encroachment. Plants are always considered as a primary source of drugs in traditional and alternative system of medicine in various forms such as crude form, juice, decoction, and crude extracts. About 80% people of the world, particularly in the rural areas of developing countries, continue using traditional resources in healthcare. This chapter deals with the assessment of the richness of ethnomedicinal plant species used by the local tribes in forest areas and a basic information on the ethnomedicinal plants, its conservation strategies, and correlation between the ethnomedical usage of medicinal plants and modern medicines. Keywords
Medicinal plants • Biodiversity • Ethnobotany
N. Vijayan • S. Abdulhameed (*) Inter University Centre for Bioscience, Department of Biotechnology and Microbiology, Kannur University, Thalassery Campus, Kannur, Kerala 670661, India e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] T.S. Swapna Department of Botany, University of Kerala, Karyavattom, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 695581, India e-mail: [email protected] G. Seghal Kiran Department of Food Science and Technology, Pondicherry University, Puducherry 605014, India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 S. Abdulhameed et al. (eds.), Bioresources and Bioprocess in Biotechnology, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3573-9_18
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18.1 Introduction 18.1.1 Ethnobotanical Base of India The scientific investigation of indigenous knowledge of different ethnic group or communities is highly relevant for a utilization of the same in applying along with modern practices. Traditional ethnobotanical knowledge of plant resources forms the basis for the use of plants and plant products to treat variety of diseases (Singh 1993). Medico-ethnobotany is emerging these days as it deals with the interrelation of botany with the indigenous knowledge about medicinal properties of plants, which finds their application coupled with modern medicine. This in turn will help in protecting the cultural ethnicity and biodiversity of the region. Traditional knowledge about the medicinal plants and the method of application are kept as a secret by the indigenous healers (Fisseha 2007). The lack of recorded documents increases the risk of losing the immensely valuable data (Fisseha 2007). This fact has triggered a lot of interest in initiating studies on scientifically unearthing the ethnomedicinal practices kept secret for a long time by different ethnic groups. Documenting the traditional knowledge is significant for the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable utiliza
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